The Mattersburg Cultural Center was built in 1976. Its unique appearance, in which concrete was the main building material, is referred to as “Brutalism”: Many Brutalist buildings have been places under a preservation order, including the cultural center in Mattersburg.
In 2015, the architecture firm HOLODECK architects ZT GmbH from Vienna won the competition for the renovation of the outdated cultural center, which was already vacant at the time. Together with the BDA (Federal Monuments Office), a renovation concept was developed, which has been implemented since 2019.
he façade of the original event hall and the partially adjoining rooms were therefore not allowed to be changed during the construction work. The existing building was upgraded for its new purpose in order to create an open transition to the new slender steel and glass construction of the foyer. The tapered columns in the foyer and the suspended walkway on the upper floor support the impression of lightness in contrast to the brutalism.
The foyer connects the existing building with the new building, which includes a new event hall and rooms for an archive. The new building is clad with prefabricates concrete elements to create a design link between the concrete brutalism of the 1970s and the new building by emphasizing the concrete.
AS a structural feature, a floor-to-ceiling reinforced concrete framework made of in-situ concrete spans the entire width of the event hall, which also forms the main level of the archive above the hall. We are delighted that we have been able to bring a jewel of a building from the 1970s into the new millennium with our painstaking attention to detail.
